PECRMII
by quill.is.mightier
Summary: It takes some not-so-accidental and not-so-sober eavesdropping, along with some eyebrow comparison and nostril flaring, to make Lily see the light. Curious about the title? You'll just have to read and see... LJ Oneshot.


A/N Dedicated to Diane Langley, even though she's a dirty Sirius/Lily shipper. This story was begun over a year ago, meant to be short and light-hearted and silly. Then it turned into a saga in 4 acts, each defined by Lily's level of inebriation. The tone will shift with each act and how plastered Lily is on a scale of _The World is Three-Dimensional and Totally Makes Sense_ to _Hands Are Weird Ooh I Have a Great Idea Let's Play Truth or Dare, _with the always-fun follow up of _I Hate Everything About Last Night Most of All My Free Will That Let Me Drink So Much._ So buckle up. It is going to be a bumpy ride.

* * *

It takes some not-so-accidental and not-so-sober eavesdropping, along with some eyebrow comparison and nostril flaring, to make Lily see the light.

* * *

Act I. Drunk.

"Nonono, guys. Look. I'm serious. I need you guys to _look_ at me." Alice's expression was deadly serious and the other girls on the floor became hushed and leaned into to pay very close attention to Alice, their eyes wide. "My left eyebrow is, like, a _centimeter_ higher than my right!"

Lily, Marlene, and Dorcas's mouths all dropped open at once. They leaned in farther, inspecting Alice's wonky eyebrows.

"Oh Merlin, they are. Alice, we are _so_ sorry," Marlene said, looking around at Lily and Dorcas for confirmation. They all nodded their heads solemnly. "If there is anything"—and here she got choked up and put her hand to her chest—"that we can do to help you through this, you just let us know and we'll be there for you."

Alice's eyes turned watery and she put her face into her hands. "You guys are the _best_." There was a round of "aww"s and hugging before Alice continued, hiccupping. "No, I mean it. The absolute _best _girlfriends a girl could have. I mean, I don't know what I would do without you guys. A girl can't rely on just her boyfriend, you know?" They nodded solemnly again, although Lily had never had a boyfriend, _per se._ "Frank's just darling, but he doesn't understand some things. Like how hard it is to have a—a—a lopsided face." Her lip trembled and tears fell down her ruddy cheeks, a strangled noise emitting from her throat.

"We understand, Alice," Lily said. "There's no need to cry. We understand how hard it is to have a lopsided face!"

"You can try, but your face is perfectly even, Lily! It is one hundred percent symme-symmetric- symmetrified!"

"Alice, no! One of my nostrils is bigger than the other! Look!" Lily leaned her head back so they could see her nostrils.

"They look the same to me," Dorcas said, putting her arm around Alice's shoulders to comfort her in the face of such blatant symmetry.

"No no, you have to let me flare them first," Lily responded. She emptied her lungs and breathed in deeply through her nostrils. There was absolute silence.

"Oh, Merlin," Marlene said.

"Lily. Why didn't you ever tell us your nostrils were so _enormous?_" Dorcas asked.

"I've been…ashamed, I guess," Lily replied, her chin now resting against her chest. "You see, Alice. I understand. My nostrils are the size of hippogriffs, and the right one is bigger and more oblong than my left.

"When did you first…when did you first _know_?" Alice whispered. Lily frowned.

"I always suspected, you know?" She said, looking at her dorm mates. Marlene nodded, understanding completely, grabbing the bottle of Firewhiskey from the middle of the circle without taking her eyes, rapt with attention, off Lily. "But I didn't really know until—_hic—_James Potter told me what whopping, uneven nostrils I have in second year."

"That Potter. No _wonder_ you can't stand the bloke!"

"Honestly, boys can be so _stupid_."

"Do they sit around, thinking of horrid things to say?"

"Next thing you know, Lupin'll march up to Alice and talk about her disfigured eyebrows!" Dorcas cried. Alice began sobbing. Marlene immediately took the crying Alice into her arms and began rocking her.

"It's alright Alice, we won't let them say those mean things to you. You'rebeautiful on the _inside_, and really, it's not that noticeable. Right, girls?"

"Right" Lily and Dorcas chorused. "You can only tell if you look real—_hic—_close," Lily added.

"Why are boys so _awful?_" Alice wailed. "First they don't understand anything like girl mates do, then they say horrid things about nostrils and eyebrows!"

"I bet they're scheming right now," Marlene said slowly, and all the girls' eyebrows shot up, Alice's left going a centimeter higher than her right, of course. Lily yanked the Firewhiskey from Marlene's hands and took a gulp.

"We can't let this go on," she said and the girls shook their heads. Fierce determination was written on each of their faces. "They must be stopped." It was then that the Plan to End the Cruel Reign of Male Idiocy and Insensitivity was concocted.

"Ready to launch operation P-E-C-R-M-I-I?" Lily asked, glancing around at her comrades, all dressed, as she was, in black.

"That's a mouthful," Alice said.

"That's what _she_ said," Marlene replied with a snigger. They all giggled.

"Well, that's the plan's acromum," Dorcas explained. "We can't change the acronit."

"Its what?" Alice asked the same time that Marlene slurred, "The whozit?"

"Acronym?" Lily guessed. Dorcas snapped her fingers, "That's the one!"

"Just don't _spell_ out the acronym," Marlene said, as though revealing the secret of the universe. "Pronounce it like a _word_."

"Ohhhh," they all said.

"Pes-ram-eye?" Dorcas tried.

"Peak-rum-ee," Alice said, flicking Dorcas for her ridiculous suggestion. Lily put her hands on Marlene and Alice's arms, signaling to them that she _had it_.

"Pecker-me. It's perfect. We're going to overthrow the evil dictatorship of men. And what do men have?" She asked. They all shook their heads, _Tell us, Lily._ "Peckers. They. All. Have. Peckers."

"Bugger. Lily's right! They do! They _do_ all have peckers." With that revelation, and the perfect pronunciation for Operation PECRMII, they were ready to go.

They tiptoed down the spiral staircase and slunk through the empty common room. Dorcas tripped over the edge of a rug.

"Dorcas, be quiet! This is a _stealth_ mission." Dorcas scrambled to her feet and hung her head low.

"We won't wait for you next time," Lily said. "We can't maintain the honor code of soldiers, not when we're committing espionage. There's no room for error, and we must be able to act as autonomous agents," she whispered, shifting her eyes around the room. Dorcas nodded.

"It won't happen again, Commando Lily." The stern silence erupted into giggles when they noticed Dorcas' error.

"Don't let the peckers know Lily's going commando," Marlene said with a hoot. Lily poked her harshly.

"_Stealth_," she said.

They made it up the boys' staircase roughly ten minutes later and all shushed each other, though no one had been making any discernable noise until the round of rather loud shushing began. They crouched low on the landing, right outside the door to the seventh year boys' dormitory.

Lily turned to shush Alice, Marlene, and Dorcas one last time and took out her wand, giggling. She held it up to the door and whispered, "_Audio albus." _Nothing happened and she frowned.

"Li-_lyyyy_," Marlene said quietly, dragging her name into two long syllables. "It's_ audio altus_, remember?"

"What? Wha'd I say?"

"_Audio albus_. What's that do, listen to Professor Dumbledore's conversations?" They sniggered before another round of shushing commenced. Lily tried again, with the correct spell, and suddenly each girl could hear the goings-on of the room outside of which they were perched, as though it were an audio track they were listening to with headphones.

They grinned mischievously at one another. Time for Phase Two of their brilliant plan—eavesdrop until they heard something humiliating and then burst into the room, laughing. It was pure genius, and they all eagerly awaited the juicy kernel that would trigger the ultimate downfall of Men Everywhere.

"I dunno, Padfoot." ("That's James!" Dorcas squealed quietly. They shushed her.)

"I'm _tellin _you, mate, she is warm for your form." There was the groan of springs from a mattress that all the girls recognized from their long use of Hogwarts' old four-poster beds.

"And _I'm_ telling _you, _that she finds me…tolerable at best. It's hopeless."

"Well, yeah, but you knew that in second year. I'm calling em like I see em, and I say Evans is just bursting with repressed sexual yearning for you." Lily's jaw dropped and she looked mightily offended, and the other girls' quiet giggling ceased when she glared at them.

"Pad, please don't talk about Lily and repressed sexual yearning in the same sentence. It's just…wrong." Lily decided she might spare Remus from the Genocide of Male Pride and Power.

"I thought we were done talking about Ev-Evans?"

"Wormy, haven't you learned by now? No matter how many times Prongs says he's done obsessing over Evans, he's really just saying 'I am momentarily sinking into a pathetic pit of denial where I could even for an instant believe that I am still in possession of my balls'."

There was a bang. Followed by laughter.

"Blimey, James! I don't think an extra NOSE was called for! _Reemmuusss._"

"Calm down, Sirius. Don't worry about your precious pretty face, I'll fix it right up." More laughter.

"That's 68, Prongs." The girls looked at each other. What did Sirius mean? 68 hemorrhoids he's endured? 68 girls he'd been rejected by? What humiliating thing could it be!

"Wait, when were 66 and 67?"

"You missed 66 while you were in remedial, Pete. James said Lily got a new skirt and was raving how beautiful she was, and Sirius said she looked downright shaggable in it, and James _Tarantallegra_-ed him."

"Classic," James said.

"67?"

"It was yesterday," Sirius said, sounding moody.

"Aw, man. What happened?"

"I don't really remember. Prongs?"

"Can't recall, Pads."

"You guys always have the most fun when I'm not around."

"Stop failing in class and running down to the kitchens every bleeding hour, and you'd be around." Lily was pretty sure that was Sirius. Their man-voices could be hard to tell apart. Lily looked to Alice to see if this was embarrassing enough to barge in about. Alice shook her head, but Lily was getting fed up hearing them talk about her.

"Lay off, Sirius." Remus, of course.

"I just- I'm going absolutely _starkers_ trying to be all friendly, but not _too_ friendly because then she'll slap me and I swear to Merlin, if she wears that skirt one more time, I'm going to explode!"

"Oy, Prongs. Graphic. We don't want to know about your _explosions_." Lily thought that was the noise of a pillow being tossed.

"Eugh, Padfoot. Not what I meant. I meant, I'm just going to completely lose control and snog her ears off."

"Wouldn't you rather snog her pants off?" Sirius sniggered.

"Care to make it 69, Padfoot?" Potter growled menacingly.

"Her knickers would need to come off for that too, wouldn't they, James?" Another bang, a howl, and more laughter. The girls all rolled their eyes at each other. Boys, always hexing.

"Quit talking about Lily's pants!"

"Stop hexing me!"

"I will if you quit talking about Lily like that!" Marlene, Dorcas, and Alice _aww_ed at that, and Lily stared at them disbelievingly.

"PECRMII," she said. "Re_mem_ber?" They all looked ashamed and nodded, back to listening intently for a slipup, a revelation of what would be their undoing.

"James. Sirius. Calm down." They grunted at Remus.

"It's not my fault Prongs always has his knickers in a twist," Sirius muttered.

"I'm in love, Sirius, you tosser. I don't 'have my knickers in a twist' just because you've never _been_ in love."

Lily could not stand it one second longer and she burst through the door.

"James Posher, you totter," she began. Did she get that backwards? "I don't appreciate you making claims of such a nature about me." All the girls were vacillating between staring slackjawed from their crouched positions on the landing and giggling hysterically.

James simply seemed stunned.

"Lily, are you…are you _drunk?_" he asked.

"I may have had a dew frinks, but don't turn the tables around, Mr. Lover McLovington," she said, wagging her finger. "You can't just _sit_ up here, talking about me like I'm not even here!"

"We didn't know you were here," Sirius said, eyeing her strangely, before winking at Marlene, who giggled, then glared. PECRMII was still in operation, after all.

"PECRMII, Lily! PECRMII!" Marlene cried, causing Peter and Remus to look at her strangely, while James still stared at Lily and Sirius laughed.

"Sirius, Remus, Pete—how about you take the ladies back to their dorms? I'll just…have a chat with Lily and take her back in a few."

"My pleasure," Sirius said, winking at Marlene again.

"We're staying with Lily," Alice said.

"Autonomous units," Lily replied, leaving James looking even more confused, and Alice nodded, again solemn. The boys ushered the girls out and Lily stomped over to James bed to poke him in the shoulder.

"You are an insufferagible prat…prattle…prattletale!"

"Lily, I think we should probably get you to bed, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that I don't," he paused, "well, I don't sit around talking about you all day or anything. Don't pay attention to Sirius." His face was a flaming red and Lily leaned in, squinting one eye.

"Are you _blushing_, Potter? I've done it! I've found it! PECRMII is a SUCCESS!" she shouted.

"What in bleeding hell is a peckerme?" James asked, steadying Lily, who was wobbling a bit. Wobbling with victory.

"Our Plan to End the Cruel Reign of Male Idiocy and Insensitivity."

"How can you manage to remember that ridiculous name and not be able to say 'prat' correctly?"

"I'm a very intelligent witch," she responded, wagging her finger again.

"I'm aware," he said, laughing and capturing her finger with his hand. "Let's just get you to bed."

"Don't change the subject just because you want to avoid your own humiliating defeat." She jerked her finger out of his hand and poked him in the chest again. "Who has giant nostrils _now_, Potter?"

"What in the—uh-oh. Evans? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Potter. I'm celebrating your defeat!"

"You look like you're drunkenly swaying to me… Seriously, Lily. Off to bed with you." He gently grabbed her arm to start towing her off to her dorm, but she dug her heels in and shook her head. He sighed and pulled harder, seeing that reason, in this case, would be impotent.

She responded by pulling out her wand and casting a permanent sticking charm to her feet.

"Ha," she said triumphantly. James appeared flabbergasted. Then she decided she very much wanted to sit down; she tried to walk to his bed, but her feet wouldn't move. She looked down, realized what she had done, and felt tears begin to pool in her eyes. She looked mournfully up at James and her lip trembled.

James looked terrified and asked what was wrong, what he could do. The tears leaked from her eyes and ran down her face.

"I just want to sit down," she said in the most pitiful voice she could manage. He ran to grab his wand and conjure a chair for her.

"Wow. Conjuring. That was really good, James," she said, looking up at him from her seat. Now her legs were uncomfortable, too close together for a normal seated position.

"Thanks, Lily. I'm just going to try and unstick you, how about that?" he said to her. Her eyes felt droopy.

"Okay."

* * *

Act II. Hungover.

_Why does the world suck so much?_ Those were Lily's first thoughts as she awoke with the light piercing through her eyelids, and that's how she knew she was hung over. It had only happened a couple of times, but you don't forget that feeling. That dry mouth, pounding head, swirling memory, nauseated feeling. She made an odd, gargling noise from the back of her throat and tried to burrow under her covers.

Her covers, which were underneath her, instead of on top of her. What was on top of her? She cracked an eye and saw an unfamiliar blanket. She turned her head and saw familiar red hangings, but sniffed a familiar smell that was bad. Very, very bad. Her pillow should _not_ smell like James Potter. She desperately tried to remember what had happened the night before, feeling as though the clock were ticking, and a test were coming up very soon, and she had to be prepared.

Hens' night. Drinking. Eyebrows, nostrils, drinking. A plan…? A plan to what? A plan to—oh no. She had snuck up to the boys' dorm and—oh _no_. What was she going to do now? How could she ever face any of them again?

Then an even worse thought struck. Was she even _in_ her bed right now? She rolled to the side and, trying not to groan at the pounding in her head, she pulled back the hangings to assess the situation.

Definitely not in her bed. If the snoring boys around her weren't enough indication, the mess on the floor and every flat surface would have been. Honestly, she was just surprised it didn't smell to high heavens. Something caught her eye. Her shoes. Why were her shoes in the middle of the floor?

Shit. She had permanently stuck her feet to the floor. She must have dozed off as Potter tried to get her feet out of her shoes. She felt grateful for a moment, only to wonder why he had dumped her in his bed instead of taking her back to her room like a gentleman should have. That made her very angry and she jumped out of bed (_oowwwww)_, ready to find Potter and start the day off right—with some yelling.

She found him very quickly, considering she tripped over him as she was jumping out of bed to find him. He was snoozing on the floor next to his bed, or he had been snoozing until she tumbled over him, one foot kicking him in the face as she fell.

"Bloody—agh!"

"What? Whoz ere?"

"Hiffrrgibble?"

Peter could apparently sleep through anything and did not wake up at the sudden cacophony in his dorm. James sat up, rubbing his face and moaning. Sirius had leapt to his feet on top of his bed, wand out, blearily looking round for the threat, and Remus had merely lifted one lid to see what the trouble was before promptly falling back asleep.

Lily resisted the urge to apologize and twisted around so she could sit properly as she reamed James Potter. She hated that that sounded dirty in her head and now she was distracted.

"Care to explain why I woke up in your bed, Potter?" she growled. Yes, she was doing intimidation quite nicely, if she did say so herself. He looked over at her and rubbed a hand over his face groggily.

"Um, because you fell asleep while I was trying to get you unstuck from the floor?"

"And why didn't you take me to my room?" she hissed.

"Because, frankly, I wasn't sure I could levitate you or carry you there without banging your head in the stairwell. And then you'd wake up and try to stick yourself to the floor again, or something." He groaned and flopped back onto the pillow he had been sleeping on, his eyes closing.

"It's too early, Evans. Go back to bed."

"I will. I'll go back to _my_ bed, the one you should have taken me to last night," she hissed. He smiled, his eyes still closed, and said, "Alright. Later, Evans."

She huffed, and sat still for a moment before realizing that he wasn't going to say anything else. She huffed again and stormed out of the room, down the stairs, through the common room, past a group of first years ("What are _you_ looking at?"), up the girls' staircase, and into her room. She plopped onto her bed, crossed her arms, and stared at the wall.

After a few minutes, she decided that, since the wall couldn't make James Potter disappear, it was rather useless to stare angrily at it. She took some spare Pepper-Up potion she had in her drawer and decided to try to get some more sleep, but found herself laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling for quite a while.

Stupid James Potter was so arrogant he couldn't even go one night without sleeping shirtless, even when he _knew_ she was a foot away. It was just so like him to parade around half-naked. Insufferable git. How was she supposed to sleep with him being such an insufferable, half-naked git, just half a tower away?

Lily awoke and stretched luxuriantly. For some reason, she felt it was going to be a great day. Not just great. Fantastic. There was a certain buoyancy of spirit within her, akin to the feeling you get when someone gives you a fabulously flattering compliment and you just seem to walk on air the rest of the day. She hummed a little tune to herself as she skipped to the bathroom to get a drink of water (why was her mouth so dry?) and use the loo. When she came out, she was surprised to notice her dorm mates all gone, but when she saw the time she was rather more surprised she had slept so late. Assuming they had gone down to the Great Hall, Lily shrugged and decided to have a piece of chocolate for breakfast.

She put on her favorite skirt, a blue one that showed she had curves, but didn't force her to sit like a lady all day. Lily wasn't very good at sitting like a lady for long. She left her hair down and even shot a quick spell at it to help it shine. She grabbed her book, _Love Story_, and hopped down the steps to the common room. She just loved the common room. She wasn't sure if she'd ever told anyone before, but it was just the most fantastic place in the world. So warm and cozy and full of life during the day, but quiet and calm at night. The perfect place to read her book, so she'd be ready to watch the film with her mum when she went home.

She snuggled into an armchair after waving to some fellow Gryffindors and opened her book, nibbling on her piece of chocolate.

After a while, she heard the portrait swing open and through the hole came slouching Alice, Marlene, and Dorcas, followed by Sirius, Remus, and Potter. The former group appeared entirely haggard, while the latter seemed rather amused.

Lily sat up straight and cocked her head at them when the girls collapsed into the couch across from her and the boys took perches on the arms of various pieces of furniture.

"And why the bleeding hell do _you_ seem so cheerful and _non_miserable, Lily? I could barely get out of bed this morning," Marlene groaned.

"What do you mean? What happened?" Lily asked. Alice stared at her.

"What happened is we had an entire handle of Firewhiskey and nobody should be able to wake up looking as _non_miserable as you do after that," Marlene said. Dorcas moaned her agreement. Her brown hair was looking rather like it could do with a shine spell.

"Firewhiskey? What are you talki—Oh. _Oh._" Why had she forgotten? She had already woken up and remembered once that day, why had she forgotten again? And why had she been in such a good mood after what Potter had said?

What had he said, exactly?

"_I will when you quit talking about Lily like that!"_

"_I'm in love, Sirius, you tosser."_

Oh. A fierce blush overtook her complexion and she mumbled something about breakfast before bolting out of the room. In an extremely calm and graceful, gazelle-like manner. If gazelles ever tripped on Oriental rugs and slammed their shins into armchair corners.

Breakfast was over in the Great Hall, but it never ended in the kitchens. So, to the kitchens she went, and into her face she shoveled a breakfast of brownies and self-pity.

Why did _she_ have to have the stalker from second year to sixth who estranged her from her best friend and generally ruined her life? Who decided to stop stalking her seventh year after his inexplicable nomination to Head Boy. Who was apparently not just a stalker with a strange obsession for bugging and humiliating her, but was in _love_ with her. Or thought he was. Or told his friends that he was. Or…shit.

And okay, he wasn't exactly responsible for the corruption of her friendship with Sev, but she hadn't had it in her heart to truly forgive him for his role in the end of the longest lasting friendship she'd ever had—maybe even the closest—until just a few months ago. Just a few months ago when said git had apologized, not for the first time, but for the first time with a true sincerity of spirit, on the train in the Heads' compartment.

He hadn't looked her in the eye, staring instead at his feet and ruffling the hair at the back of his head. Which was a habit that over the next couple of months she couldn't help but realize was born of nervousness, anxiety, and plain old habit most of the time. She forgave him the quirk and then it was…well, nice. Ruffly hair was sort of the James Potter trademark. That and his crooked smile. And his silly glasses.

Her jaw slowly stopped opening and closing in her previously frantic quest to eat her fifth brownie and she realized with dawning horror that she thought James Potter was downright _scrumptious._ Sure, he was handsome—always had been, and no amount of obnoxious behavior and arrogant proposals had ever really convinced her he wasn't. But it had always been a detached sort of recognition that the symmetry of his face, smoothness of his skin, strength of his jaw, and planes of his body were those of a fit bloke. She hadn't really thought of _James_ as a bloody fit bloke. Not until just now.

Or, really, a few months ago.

Or, really, eight months ago by the lake with all the sixth-year Gryffindors when her white shirt had gotten wet and mildly see-through and he had done a drying spell without comment. And she had noticed that _his_ shirt was more than mildly see-through and sticking lovingly to his chest. And back.

She had done a drying spell because it was obscene how Nell, the slut of sixth year Hufflepuff, kept openly staring at him, and no one wanted to see them go at it, because she had heard a rumor that they had snuck to the village for a date, and Potter had been asking her out with drastically decreasing frequency so it was quite possible they were practically dating and PDA was simply gross.

Oh, shit. She had the hots for James Potter. And James Potter was possibly in love with her. And the heart attack that that thought gave her seemed less panic and horror-induced than it should. It felt more like an excited heart attack.

Or maybe her body was just actually giving up on her and going into cardiac arrest because she was shoveling herseventh brownie down her esophagus (she was totally bypassing her mouth at this point). After gulping the mostly whole brownie down, she tottered off her stool to leave, because she was scaring some of the house elves and thought it best for her sanity and waistline that she went back to the common room.

But no, there were James Potters in the common room and she didn't want to be around all that…James Potter…ness.

So she waved goodbye to the sweet elves who were already busy whipping themselves into a tornado of cleaning frenzy in an attempt to sweep away the chaos left behind by teenage girl hormones.

She waddled through the hallways in a haze of brownie-induced self-loathing and James Potter-induced confusion. Bollocks.

Sitting on the steps outside the castle and feeling chilly despite the extra-strength heating charm she had placed around her jumper-clad, beskirted self, Lily breathed in air hat stung the nostrils and cleared the mind as only the wintry air of the Scottish highlands could.

Then she coughed because the air stung a bit too much. Then she sighed because she was thinking about the unopened bottle of Firewhisky still under her bed and _that_ was a dangerous pattern for her thoughts to be taking. Problems? Emotional discomfort? A little alcohol will fix all that!

But she did remember with bitter fondness the bemuddled clarity (it only sounds contradictory to sober people) and ease of the alcohol-fuzzed night. If only she hadn't heard those things, or if only she could convince herself he'd said it all in a mocking voice, in the voice of the James Potter she'd once convinced herself she could so easily hate.

If only everything were easy.

But everything wasn't easy. In fact, everything was really rather hard, and though that could be quite unfortunate, it was also pretty damn important. Hens' nights were fun and important in their own way, but if every day—if all of life—were tipsy giggles and easy friendships, then life would probably be quite a dull affair and not at all as worthwhile as it was with hangovers, confusing friends-slash-paramours, morally questionable ex-best friends, and even war. Though she would really, _really_, change the war part if she could.

And wasn't pretending that you didn't care about somebody that you do (care about, that is) in the midst of a war sort of the dumbest, most pointless thing ever?

It hit her in a flash. A scene, so vivid and easy to believe it was almost as if it were a vision, an episode from the future.

_Running, as fast as she can, leaping over underbrush and fallen debris at the edge of a wood, but unable to stop herself from throwing her head to the side to see the monsters pursuing her, black robes billowing, as sinister shrouds. She shouldn't look back, she needs to look ahead, where safe haven lay._

_She shouldn't look back, but she does—two, three times, until the fourth (when she's so out of breath and her legs burn so mightily that she knows she can't make it, she just can't, and she has to see how much distance they've covered, how much time she has left), when she trips._

_Her knee hits the ground so hard she wonders if it's shattered, and in the time between that death-sentence kneel and the moment her hands fall hard to the earth to catch her, it happens. The thing everyone says happens._

_Her life flashes before her eyes. Mom, Dad, Petunia, Sev, Surrey, the beach in the South of France where they went on holiday every year, Hogwarts, Alice, Marlene, James. James. James. James. The man who'd loved her and she had liked and pretended she hadn't, and maybe if she hadn't pretended, she would have loved him back. Or maybe they could have just been friends, the kind she couldn't have ever really been with Sev. Maybe, what if, might have, could have been, _won't be_. _

_And her hands hit the ground. And the Death Eaters hit her._

Tears threaten, but Lily worried she wouldn't be able to salvage her dignity if she started crying on the steps after eating seven brownies, so she sucks them back into her eyeballs with sheer force of will. Deep breaths and she'd be okay. She'd get up, walk up the stairs and…

She'd figure it out on the stairs. But she bloody wasn't going to bloody think about regretting not bloody dating James Potter on her bloody deathbed.

* * *

Act III. Tipsy.

"Nonono. Listen to me." Lily's face was a study in trying—and failing—to look stern. James mimicked the effort but couldn't keep the maniacal grin from spreading on his face and eventually they both wobbled over, their crossed legs unable to provide enough stability for their balance-impaired state.

They laughed for a long time, until, "You really are a horrid brown-noser, Lil." Now Lily was not nearly so impaired that she thought _that_ remark funny in the least. So it was quite the shock to her when her body spasmed in another fit of laughter.

She mitigated the effect by punching James repeatedly in the arm, which was difficult from their positions on the floor. He laughed as well, snorting occasionally, and defending his arm from Lily's brutal attacks.

Eventually they both rolled to their sides, facing each other on the berugged floor of the common room and holding their sides, they hurt so much. Amazingly, in all their flailing about, the open Firewhiskey bottle remained upright and undisturbed. The each took awkward swigs after propping themselves on elbows, their giggles petering out.

"Wha'd ya wanna say?" James asked, heroically working through another bout of chuckles.

"I wanted you to listen to me."

"Oh okay."

"…Lily?"

"What?"

"What am I supposed to be listening to?" She burst into giggles again.

"I forget."

"Then tell me something."

"I said I forget!"

"The first thing you think of, then!" Lily scoffed because she was having blissfully few thoughts at the moment and drank some Firewhiskey instead.

"Why should I?"

"Because I said I'd listen and _you're_ not talking.'

"Fine. I'm thinking about…PECRMII," she finished on a little-thought-out whim.

"About _what_? Wait… wait a minute. Is this that thing you said on—" and here James stopped because they hadn't exactly ever talked about that night. Or the morning after.

"Um…" Probably silence would have been best, but Lily was feeling a little fuzzy at the moment, and though her brain picked silence, her mouth picked, "You mean when I got drunk and eavesdropped and you said you loved me?"

James apparently wasn't as tipsy because his mouth chose silence. Or maybe his brain had picked words and his mouth had betrayed him, too. She wanted to know, but she didn't quite know how to ask.

After a beat of hot breath swirling in Lily's mouth because she didn't want to open her mouth (words might come out with the breath) and she was a little too tipsy to remember how to breathe with her nose, James slowly nodded. Lily wasn't even sure what he was nodding to (that he remembered that night or that he really did love her or what was it she had even asked?)

"Oh."

"So?"

"So what?"

"So what the bloody hell is PECRMII, woman?"

"James, don't be such a _git_!"

"Just tell me already, Lily. I'll give you the last chocolate frog?"

"I want it first. I don't trust you."

"No way. You always shove it into your mouth—_whole._ Tell me first." She sighed. He was so _unfair_.

"I think it was, 'Plan to End the Cruel Reign of Male Insensitivity and Idiocy." James blinked. She held out her hand for her well-deserved frog. He tightened his grip on it.

"You can't just say that and not explain! I already knew what it _stood_ for. That doesn't count as telling at all!" She huffed, and it was a good one. A good, indignant huff.

"What's there to explain? We had a hens' night and it was very obvious that men are horrible. You had to be stopped." James raised an eyebrow.

"And what exactly did we do to you lot?"

"What don't you do? You're horrible!"

"You said that," he said, smiling. "Tell me exactly what sparked the Plan to End the Cruel, uh….peckerme."

"Alice's eyebrows."

"What the—?"

"Shhhhhh, you can't tell. You have to _promise_. It's Alice's biggest secret." James nodded, solemn and very curious.

"One eyebrow is, like, a whole _centimeter_ higher than the other! Can you imagine? We all felt so awful for her, of course she was in tears." Lily's eyes were on her frog.

"She was in tears because one eyebrow was higher than the other by such a small amount no one can even tell?"

"James. You can tell." Boys.

"Alright, and what does that have to do with men?"

"Because to make her feel better, I had to share her pain. I told her…_that_ story."

"What story?"

"You know…oh, James, don't be crass and make me _say_ it."

"Oh, God, Lily. I didn't know you knew. I swear, as soon as I realized it was the girl's changing room, I left! I barely caught a peek!"

"What? No. My," she started, then leaned in and whispered as quietly as her ill-behaved mouth would go, "my _nostrils_." Of course James immediately looked at her nostrils, and she immediately clamped her hands over her nose, like a starfish suctioned to a seal's face..

"Your nostrils? Merlin, you're not making any sense at all. No more Firewhiskey for you."

"You don't remember?" Her hands fell away and her eyes were filling with tears. Her most humiliating experience and he didn't even _remember_. Didn't he care about her at all?

"Remember WHAT?" His eyebrows (perfectly symmetrical, except for the teensy tiny scar no one but her and him probably knew he had, and that was really more dashing than disfiguring) were knitted and he had on his angry face that he used for obtuse prefects.

"You don't remember." She was so very, very upset. The defining moment of their young relationship, and he couldn't be bothered to piss on the memory, because he DIDN'T HAVE IT.

"Bleeding—Lily, just tell me what you're talking about, or I'm eating this frog!" That put things in perspective for Lily and she decided to just tell him like it was no big deal. But then the words wouldn't come out of her traitor mouth and so she did a little charm she had learned from a twelfth century Gramarye, nobigdeal. Except it didn't work the first time.

But the second time, James' voice filled the air around them, high and preadolescent and full of mocking, just as she remembered it.

"_Look, look! Look at Evans' nose!"_

"_What, James? It's freckled, but—"_

"_No, look! Look how _enormous_ her nostrils are! Good Merlin, how can someone with such a tiny head have such a big, lousy brain and such big nostrils! The right one's even bigger than the left!"_

She let the spell die to the hideous sounds of his laughter, joined by Sirius, Remus, and Peter's.

She summoned the courage to look at him, ready to accept his apology after all these years. She could be a grown-up who moved on, got over the past.

And the bastard didn't even look contrite. His stupid scarred eyebrow was lifted like when prefects were being obtuse but he thought it was amusing and beneath him.

"Sorry, Lils, but that was, what? Second year? I don't even remember it, I had my head up my arse, and _who the bloody hell cares what size your nostrils are_?"

"I do," she said. Clearly not a grown-up. Clearly not over the past. But he was being stupid.

"Well, then I am sorry. If it helps, I think you have lovely nostrils now." She sniffed and didn't answer, looking away until a delicious treat hovered into view. She snatched it up, unwrapped it, and stuffed it into her mouth, whole.

"Sooo. I guess peckerme was my fault after all. Figures." She looked at him questioningly, her mouth finally doing something right, vigorously consuming the cocoa toad.

"Well, no matter how horribly wrong everything between you and me goes, and no matter how much I shrug and wonder why fate hates me for ruining every chance with you…it really is always my fault.

The food hit her stomach and the words hit her hears and she felt thirteen percent more sober. Did he really feel that way?

"No it's not." He snorted. Now he was the one looking away. "I was," she stopped. Took a breath. Started over. "I've been horrible to you." Did she know any other words than 'horrible' today? "And I'm not really sure why. But I wish I hadn't been. And I'm not being now. Usually, that is. So, sorry," she finished.

Lame.

Lame, lame, so utterly lame.

Until James's hand was on Lily's face, and James' thumb was brushing over the tip of Lily's nose, and James' lips were kissing the tip of Lily's nose, and James' breath was setting the tip of Lily's nose on fire.

That was not, not lame. Lily felt twenty percent more tipsy.

"It's the best nose in the world." She smiled and it took a minute before he leaned away and went back to sipping Firewhiskey.

* * *

Act IV. Stone-Cold Sober.

"Ha ha ha. Bet you're jealous now, Lilykins."

"No, Sirius, I'm really not."

"This is a great vintage. I've been saving this bottle for _weeks_!" He said that as if it were an accomplishment. Which, for Sirius, it probably was.

"Sirius, you might try not blowing your uncle's fortune before you even turn twenty-one, okay?"

"I'm investing in myself," he replied absentmindedly, used to her lectures on his money habits. He concentrated on squinting against the glaring sun, unusual for England, but perfect for a backyard brunch.

"Try investing in something other than liver failure. It rarely has good returns." She'd been saving that one for a couple of weeks, just waiting for the opening he was bound to give her. He gave her an ice-cold glare and stalked away, only getting a few feet away before food distracted him. But it was okay. He might have been James' best man, but Sirius Black was Lily's best guy.

He just liked to play it cool.

Remus came over to the table she was setting, actually offering to help her, unlike some lazy alcoholics she could mention.

"He bothering you?"

"He just can't help tempting me. I know he wishes it weren't so, but I just can't fight the attraction. But I know I can't hurt James like that. I just wish Sirius could make it easier on me," she choked up, "mute his raw sexuality."

Sirius looked like he wanted to laugh, one of his big, barking ones, but was determined to look irritated and not at all amused. But Remus had no such compunctions and laughed for the both of them.

"Don't be so hard on the guy. He's just jealous." Lily grumbled through her smile. Yeah yeah, where had she heard that before?

"When is he going to get over the fact that he can't have James all to himself anymore?"

"Um," Remus thought about it, "never?" Lily thought about acting indignant, but she was tired and the effort wasn't worth it. She was jealous, too. She had never had a friend that meant to her what Sirius and James mean to each other. She could never be mad about a brotherhood so strong. Even if Sirius did make dirty jokes about her and poke fun at her just because she was p—

"There she is!" James' booming voice came across the lawn. He had a five-o'clock shadow that she once loved for its scruffiness but now hated for what it meant—that he had been out late again, had slept in too long and was too tired to take the second it took to magic the hair away. It meant he was fighting a war. One on which she had to be on the sidelines. But he was happy in his haggard way, so she smiled back and did her 'yep, here I am!' shrug that he thought was adorable.

He hugged her tight at her shoulders and smiled at his friends, leaving her with Remus to finish the table. Just like his husband, er…she meant, his best friend. James was just like his best friend.

Lily felt a wave of nausea come over her and she sat down on the bench. They all turned to her and clucked like little father hens until she waved them away, at which time they proceeded to be manly once more. She still felt sick to her stomach, but the sun was on her face, she could hear her husband talk jovially to his two best friends, and even though there was a war on, she was p—

"Bet you wish you had one of these bad boys right about now, huh, Lilster?" Sirius called, waving his bottle at her with a smug grin.

"You bastard, I say stupid things and get nauseated and vomit just fine without alcohol, thanks!"

"James, reign in your woman. If she calls me a rotten name one more time, I might think you don't have her under control." She called him a name so foul that Remus blushed and James laughed and Sirius sputtered until he took a swig of his precious whiskey to have something to do with himself.

"Yep, I have her under control alright," James said. He gave her that look that she knew meant, 'I love you and want to kiss your forehead so you know how much I treasure you, or maybe I'll just tie you to the bedpost and screw your brains out instead'. It was her favorite look, and her feathers ruffled and fluffed up in pleasure that he was proud of how foul her mouth was.

"Well, if I can't hate her anymore, then could you at least find me one just like her?" She blushed a little, then ran to the bushes to vomit.

As much as she loved it, being pregnant was the pits sometimes.

A/N Tada! Tell me what you think


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